A Guide to Calculate Cab Booking App Development Cost

Quick Summary: Aiming to be the next Uber of the Cab Booking App industry? Or go beyond Uber, too, maybe? Here is the perfect guide for you to estimate the cost of building a cab booking app that will thrive in the competitive market of cab booking apps.

Your average cab booking app development cost will range from around $20000 – $45000*. Before we decode this cost, we should understand the demand for cab booking apps and their relevance.

On-demand cab booking app development is one of the top trending mobile app solutions experiencing a global demand and attracting thousands and millions of businesses to try their luck at capitalizing as much market share of this lucrative business model as possible.

Many traditional cab companies are also slowly shifting towards the app-led cab service market, as they realize the impact Uber made on the overall cab-hailing industry. Success stories of Uber, Lyft, and many other such global cab booking app development companies paved the way to inspire new businesses to try Uber-like app development.

1. Decoding Uber’s Success – Why did it work?

Uber provides its customers with a fast and reliable cab booking app solution. With the help of an app, people can book a cab at their convenience, share ride tracking details with their families, travel cashless by linking their credit card and mobile wallets to the Uber app, and much more. Apart from the millions they would have spent on marketing, the features that they integrated and kept updating truly account for Uber’s success.

1.1 Facts and Figures about the Uber App

According to Backlinko

1.2 Key Benefits of an Uber-Like App

1.3 Other Leading Cab Booking Mobile Apps across the Globe

2. Cab Booking App Development Cost Considerations

Now that we have understood how the top players have secured their position in the cab app development industry, we should start decoding the various cost factors that will help you reduce or get a fair estimate of the average cab booking app development cost for your cab app. Here are some of the most important considerations to get a clear idea before diving any more profound.

2.1 Uber Clone vs. Custom Cab App Development

Opting for the Uber Clone app is cheaper and quicker than custom cab app development. However, it will provide you with a basic cab-booking app that will merely imitate a popular app with no additional USPs. Custom Cab App Development is the better choice.

There is a rise in demand for ‘Uber clone’ services, and people are searching the net for ‘create an app like Uber’ or ‘how do I make my cab app more like Ola cabs’ and other such phrases. They utilize Uber clone scripts and make minor modifications to create a close copy of such popular apps. While Uber Clone is quick and hassle-free, the potential of such apps is often limited with significantly less value proposition to survive in the intense cab app market.

Instead, suppose you decide to create your cab app from scratch and opt for custom cab app development services. In that case, you can create a cab booking app with all the freedom and flexibility of integrating different unique services that the most popular cab booking apps might be missing. This will give your app a fair chance to be one of the leading cab apps rather than a mere imitation.

Uber Clone vs. Custom Cab App Development Comparison

2.2 Business Model for Cab Booking App

When planning a budget for your cab booking software, one of the most important considerations to keep in mind is the business model you want to take for your cab booking app. Primarily you have two options –

2.2.1 Dedicated Cab Booking App

If you already own a cab business or have a fleet of cars ready to be used for your cab company, this is the ideal approach to cab app development for you. By building a cab app, you are simply providing additional convenience for your existing customers to avail of your services with a tap of a button using your new cab app. In addition, if you promote your app well, you will also get access to new clients who will start using your services. In this situation, a user will book their cab through these apps, and the cab owner is responsible for providing the users with details like location, time, and price of the service. It is more of a landing page kind of app than an actual cab-booking app.

2.2.2 Aggregator Cab Booking App

This approach will be more familiar to people who use cab booking apps like Uber, Lyft, Ola, and more. This app acts as a platform for various cab companies or individual cabs to register their car under the app and start putting them up for use. Hence, an individual can earn through such a platform by putting up a single car to be used as a cab for the users. Such apps will require the user to install the app, book the cab from the app itself by entering the pickup spot and end destination. The app would calculate the fare for the ride based on pre-fed calculations and the real-time availability of cab drivers.

3. Cost for Full Stack Cab Booking App Solutions

For any cab booking app, there is a minimum of three apps that you need. One app is naturally going to be for the users you are targeting to use your cab-booking app services. The second is for the cab drivers, so they can accept and respond to the trip requests made by the users. And, lastly, you need cab booking software for admins, so they can use the admin panel for tracking ride details and manage complaints, inputs, or any other queries from clients and the drivers.

3.1 Cost of Cab Booking App Features Needed for Users

The user app is your main selling app. It dictates the success or failure of your entire cab-hailing booking business. You should research well about the various services and features needed to make an efficient cab app. Here we have listed down all the right features that you should integrate with your cab-hailing app.

3.2 Cost of Cab Booking App Features Needed for Drivers

Although a customer-centric cab booking app is the staple of any Cab booking company, the driver app is the currency needed to keep the staple intact. Cab drivers are essentially your most significant assets, as you need them to drive your cabs and take requests from customers. Making a user-friendly, helpful, and easy-to-navigate cab app for your drivers will help them feel important, at ease, and willing to continue longer with your company. Here are some key features to have in your cab booking app for drivers –

3.3 Cost of Cab Booking Software Features Needed for Admin Panel

Admin panels are generally web-based applications. Though you can have a separate mobile app for it, too, it is generally recommended to go for web app solutions. Administrators can still easily access the admin panel via mobile browsing. The costs of integrating cab-booking features for an admin panel differ from project to project. Here are some important features to add to your Cab booking admin panel software –

4. Cost of Cab App Development Process

The main cost to build a cab app are involved in the various development stages. Following a proper and professional cab app development process is necessary to ensure your Uber-like app’s success.

4.1 Deciding on the technology stack – Native over Cross-Platform

Before starting your cab app development process, you need to decide the appropriate technology stack and approach that you will use for building your cab app. General trend these days gravitates towards cross-platform app development as it allows you to create an app for iOS and Android with a single codebase for half the price of native apps. However, when you are in such a tertiary service sector like Cab app, your aim is always to fetch for users and grow your user-base. You need to provide them a seamless user experience with relevant features.

Hence, you should target both Apple and Android platforms since more is merrier for users. Also, it will be easier to get more partners to connect as drivers if they’re interested. However,  you should prefer to create a native cab booking app for iOS and Android over going with cross-platform app development.

For Native Android app, you can use Java or Kotlin with Android Studio.

For the Native iOS app, you can use Objective-C or Swift with XCode.

4.2 UI/UX Design Cost

How your cab app looks plays a significant role in how your potential users perceive or like your app. Choosing native mobile app development is excellent; it helps your target audience discover your app. But do we want to be discovered? If you ignore your mobile app design, most users will uninstall your app from the first experience they have with it or never install it after seeing the comments of dissatisfied users about the app layout.

Hence, your cab booking app should be –

4.3 Backend Development

Development Hours: 600 Hrs | Average Cab Booking App Development Cost: $9,000

Any cab booking app will have an extensive database of users, riders, and other essential data points. Your cab app needs to have reliable and robust cab management software for holding such large data pools. For this, your backend should be capable of offering a secure connection to all data resources, a reliable connection with all payment platforms, and other communication means. An effective backend system will also know how to disparate data and link it to the user and driver’s app user interface.

4.4 Admin Panel – Web Development

Development Hours: 300 Hrs | Average Cab Booking App Development Cost: $4,500

For creating a full-stack cab booking app like Uber, you will also need to invest in web development for the admin panel web app. This admin panel will enable the administrator to control and manage all processes of drivers and passengers’ apps. They need continuous access to the admin panel to manage the privileges and permissions to manage registered users. To create the admin panel, you can use Python’s open-source web framework Django or any other framework that suits you.

4.5 Testing and QA

Development Hours: 200 Hrs | Average Cab Booking App Development Cost: $3000

For any mobile app, testing and QA are an absolute must. If you do not test your Cab booking app effectively, you will never be able to catch any glitches, lags, or performance issues with your apps until a customer complains about it. Having a buggy app in the deployment stage and initial month would create an overall negative impression about the reliability of your services. Hence, an app needs to be tested thoroughly before deploying the app on the app stores.

For this, the QA (quality assurance) team needs to work harmoniously and closely with the app developers, UI/UX designers, support team members, project managers, and other important players in the entire Cab app development process. You also need to test any changes made to your mobile app, like improving an existing feature, adding new features, and more, before making that change permanent on the final deployed app. Once you get a list of problems or challenges, you need to prioritize them according to their relevance.

• High Priority Problems – Difficulty in calculating fares correctly, Maps not working accurately, Booking Details not showing correctly, and App Freezes.
• Medium Priority Problems – Inaccurate ETA of cab arrival, Mismatch between the type of cab booked and the type of cab that arrives, and App Frame Drops.
• Low Priority Problems – Negligible App Stutters, Minor Bugs.

4.6 Project Management

For creating an app like Uber, you need to ensure that all your project elements are present at the right place at the right time in the proper health. For this, you need an effective project management team with the skills and experience to make the right decision for each step of your Cab app development process. A project management system depends on answering the 3Ws and 1 H – What, Who, When, and How.

What?

• Identify the objectives of your Cab app development.
• Predict anticipated sales volumes and market share.

How?

• Figure out the technology stack needed for achieving your goals.
• Outline the technical and production skills needed.
• Figure out a rough process of reaching your target audience.

Who?

• Who will carry out the tasks?
• What are their qualifications and productivity levels?
• Are they rightly experienced to carry out the task?

When?

• Set predefined estimated milestones for each cycle.
• Create timely reports for each stage and phase of the Cab app development process.
• Account for the delays and make changes accordingly.

4.7 Technical Support

When dealing in a service industry, consumer complaints are to be expected and expected frequently. Hence, it is only natural that you will need a strong, responsive, and reliable technical support team to address all queries, complaints, suggestions, and other feedback you get from your customers. You should focus on providing your customers with ease of reaching out through various mediums like support forums, telephone calls, online chats, email, and more.

An effective technical support team will receive all the user feedback and analyze them, understand the most common or most pressing issue, and find a creative solution for the same. Then they would pass it to the necessary team for improvement and respond to the user who raised the query with an acknowledgement message and a resolved message when the issue gets resolved.

5. Cab Booking App Global Software Development Cost

Where you get your Cab booking app solutions from makes all the difference in the cost and estimated time of delivery of the project. It also impacts the quality of after-sales services you can expect (if any) and many other factors. India is one of the leading IT hubs for its cost-effective, efficient IT solutions. Here is a cost comparison of getting your cab-hailing app built in India vs. built in the UK, Canada, US, or other countries.

FAQS to Develop Cost-Effective Cab Booking Application

1. How much time will it take to develop my cab-booking app?

Around 60-90 days, on an average. However, the duration will depend on many factors like the number of developers you hire with us for your project.

2. Do you provide White Label Cab Booking Solutions?

Yes, we provide 100% white label cab booking solutions where we have pre-made cab booking app solutions ready that can be customized for design and features as per your requirements, with no mention of our company’s name whatsoever.

3. Will my cab application have multilanguage and multicurrency support?

Depending on the scale and budget of your cab app, and your requirements we can add multilanguage and multicurrency support to your cab application.

4. What is your payment procedure? Do I need to pay in advance?

If you want to go for custom cab app booking process, you need to pay 30% upfront fee for getting started with your project; the remaining amount will be settled in the subsequent billing cycles. However, if you want to opt for dedicated hiring model – you can hire our expert cab booking app developers for part-time, full-time and hourly basis. The general hourly rate for hiring our cab developers ranges from $15-$35.

5. Do you Sign NDA? Is my Idea secure with you?

Yes, your idea is secure with us. We understand the importance of keeping your app ideas safe, hence we ask our clients to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) before initiating the cab app development process.

6. How will I track app development process of my project?

We will assign you with a dedicated Project Manager who will keep you updated about your project development process by sending you weekly reports and timely updates. You can ask them any question you have regarding the process too.

7. Do I get detailed documentation on “How my Cab application works”?

Yes, when we hand over the final project to you, we also provide you with a detailed documentation on how your cab app works so you can get started without any issues. For any further assistance, feel free to contact us on [email protected].

8. Who is responsible to upload my app on the Google and Apple App Stores?

We ensure that your cab-booking app will be deployed successfully on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, however you will have to bear the charges of $25(one-time) for Android and $99/year for Apple app deploying charges.

9. Do you guarantee that Google PlayStore and Apple App Store won’t reject my app?

We abide by the best practices in Google PlayStore and Apple App Store and ensure your cab app complies with their respective policies ensuring successful deployment of your app on the platforms.

10. Can you help me market my Cab-Hailing App with App Store Optimization Services?

Yes we have a team of Playstore and App Store experts that have unparalleled skills in optimizing any app’s ASO that helps your cab-hailing app rank higher on the marketplace searches.

Wrapping up!

This is your go-to guide for determining the cost to build a Cab-booking app like Uber for your traditional Cab business if you have one or for starting from scratch. Make sure to integrate these considerations and features in your Cab-booking app, and you will have a full-stack best Cab-sharing app on the app marketplaces.